Improv Round Robin

So finally, here's my report back on the improv round robin at our guild's recent retreat. Eight of us chose to participate and we were divided into 2 groups of 4. We all started out in a circle with our fearless leader Chandra, sharing our starter fabrics (we were asked to bring 4 fat-quarters), going over the guidelines, and doing a little pre-improv calming. Pictured are the fabrics I started with, and I gave my group permission to add whatever they saw fit along the way. Not everyone was comfortable with that, which was totally ok! We all also had a baggy of scraps to work with as we sewed through the challenge - there was a bit of confusion whether the scraps were for our own pieces or those we worked on. My scraps were very randomly chosen, so I hung on to them and added several into the various projects as I saw fit.

First off, we were asked to use our own fabrics and make a 'starter piece.' We had 15 minutes, and here's what I made:

Then it was time to start trading! I managed to run over to snap a quick shot at the end of each rotation!

 Notice at this rotation, mine was in 2 pieces!!

Here are each of the pieces I worked on, as I received them. I guess things were too hectic to get 'before' and 'after' shots!!

AND, here's what my piece looked like when I got it back!

Below are all 4 of my group's pieces with arrows indicating what I had added in. (Actually, the purple arrow shows where my original piece was.) The green arrow shows my row of wonky crosses; the blue arrow shows where I split the piece I received and added in a pieced component; the orange arrows show a small linen strip I made plus the wonky hst strip on the left, which actually wasn't even totally finished when I passed it on!

And all 8 of the "finished" improv pieces . . .

It was definitely an experience! I've dabbled with improv on my own, but never on the works of others, and never against the clock (we traded after 15, 20, 25, and 30 minutes in each round). I learned a couple of things through this experience:

• Participating was a huge stress-inducer, and I had a major headache when I was done! (Random: daughter dear and I both joined in, and though we were in different groups, our sewing machines were across from each other. So we could encourage each other on, which was good, but we could also see what stress the other was under! Yikes.)
• Though out of my comfort zone, and even considering the above, it was quite fun!      I felt energized!
• I obviously defaulted to what was most familiar to me: crazy-pieceing, bits of linen, fussy-cutting, wonky crosses. These were spots of comfort to me in the moment.

Ok, so that's my little report on the improv round robin experience. All this in about 2 hours! If you've participated in a round robin, tell us about it in the comments or link to a post!